Fog
by Chaser Of The Moon
Summary: I once asked my mom what a broken heart was and I remember her telling me it was just an expression, nothing else. After all that's happened to me, I'm not so sure anymore.


**Disclaimer: Naruto and Co. are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. All rights reserved.

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Fog :_**(noun)- **_**a large mass of water vapor condensed to fine particles at or just above the earth's surface. **

**- obscures vision in large quantities **

I once asked my mom what a broken heart was when I was just a girl. I still remember that look she gave me when I asked her, the disbelieving look that a mere child could even ask what it was. I didn't come up with it on my own, I saw it on a television show I wasn't supposed to be watching. It wasn't a nasty show or anything, just a soap opera that went on forever and introduced new characters every other week. It was one of the shows my mom used to watch and she accidentally left it on when she left the room I was in.

There was a lady on the TV with tears streaming down her cheeks and she shouted to the guy next to her, _"I have a broken heart because of him!". _

To my small, undeveloped mind it didn't make any sense. How could a heart break? Did it just stop beating and then fall into the stomach? Did it ram its way out of the body and then crack on the floor like glass? Or did it just develope a cut that remained untreated and bled everywhere?

My mom said that little girls shouldn't worry about broken hearts but told me that it was just an expression. The heart wasn't really broken, it just meant that the person experienced something traumatic that caused them to be upset. That caused me to become more confused.

If a broken heart was just an expression, why was the lady crying like her actual heart was hurting?

I didn't understand back then but she was lying to me. Mothers often lied to their children to save them from something or to fill them with a false security. So they could think life was just a bunch of sunshine and rainbows instead of what it really was.

So their kids would believe that nothing could hurt them, nothing would ever make them feel like they're being eaten alive from the inside out.

I'll never forgive her for lying to me.

If I had heard the truth, I probably would of been careful about who I gave my heart to. Instead I was stupid and blind, gave my heart to the first person that made me feel that special _something _that made my life complete. Love isn't something that can be given away freely without consequences, I didn't know that either.

Now that I think about it, I was doomed from the beginning.

* * *

Before I started the Academy, I used to walk by it to get acquainted with the area and the walk from my house. The Academy students would always be outside running around or playing ninja with their hand made Leaf Forehead Protectors. 

But I would also see a small blonde boy sitting alone on the swing with a sad expression on his face. He looked so hurt sitting there and watching the other kids play around with each other.

They kept their distance from him and threw a glare in his direction every few minutes to make him understand where his place in their world was. Dirt, below dirt, scum, to them he was the flea on top of the flea on top of that flea.

Why would they treat someone like that? What could he of done to deserve that?

I asked my mom about him too but she just scowled and said to stay away from him because he was dangerous.

How could he be dangerous?

He looked so sad and lifeless, how dangerous could he really be?

I disobeyed my mom the day I walked over to him and said hi. He glanced up at me from his seat, a light blush tinted his tan whisker cheeks, and glanced back down without a word. _"Why are you all alone?",_ I asked him, watching the light bounce off his clear blue eyes. I felt as if I've seen his picture somewhere in my house before, those same eyes and hair on a face that resembled his.

_"Nobody wants to play with me_", he whispered back, keeping his head down so I wouldn't see his eyes. My mom did tell me that the eyes were the windows to the soul and I guess his soul would have been very sad and lonely.

_"What's your name?",_ I watched him raised his head at me with a confused expression on his face. He didn't believe that someone actually wanted to be his friend.

_"Naruto Uzumaki ", _he never spoke in a voice higher than a whisper_," What's yours?". _

_"Sakura Haruno", _I replied with a smile_," Don't worry, I'll be your bestest friend ever". _I hated making promises I couldn't keep but he needed to be reassured that someone out there didn't want him to be sad anymore. He smiled softly and looked away from me to the other children passing a ball around. He wanted many friends, I could help him with that.

When we started the Academy, I asked Kiba Inuzuka, Shikamaru Nara, and Choji Akimichi to hang out with him. They were some of the boys in my class that hung out together a lot. They were reluctant but after meeting him and having a laugh with him they became close buddies during the Academy days. They loved giving Iruka-sensei a heart attack and jumping out the window like a band of ninja idiots.

Naruto was no longer sad or even quiet, he was then completely out of his shell and screamed his words out.

I liked him better like that, a sad Naruto darkened the world.

My mom once questioned me about my friendship with the orphan and I just ignored her, I didn't need her lies anymore. She was my mother, I respect her for that, but I didn't want to hear what she had to say. She didn't know Naruto like I did, she couldn't judge him.

Years after meeting him, I finally realized where I had seen his picture before. In my mom's scrapbook, he was in there hugging a red headed girl that was winking at the camera. But it wasn't him, as I soon realized, it was his mother and father, Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki when they were just teenagers and in love. Right next to their picture, turns out the scrapbook was really my mom's journal, was a few sentences in her handwriting.

_I really don't know what Minato sees in that girl. She's loud, she's crude and parades around the whole village like she's the queen of the world. She's dragging Minato into her life, filled with burping contests, beer drinking contests, and every other barbaric thing that men do. I'm not even sure that she's really a woman. Her short hair is covered with leaves and sticks from the ground she rolls in all day. Her clothes are all torn from spending days in branches and ripped from kunai. I don't know how she can be so happy all the time. There's a war going on and she acts like its one big party. But she's all Minato talks about, I know everything about her just from talking to him. "Kushina this...", "Kushina that...","Hey did you know that Kushina..."when did he ever become so interested in a girl before? I've been his unofficial big sister for years now and I have never seen him so head over heals. I can only imagine the child they might have if they stay together long enough. Bashful and kind Minato with obnoxious and impulsive Kushina, I hope it turns out like its father..._

My mom had no idea.

But Naruto would accomplish his dream of being Hokage, it was in his blood after all. Imagine, little orphan prankster Naruto, that no one paid any attention to because he was "dangerous", was son of the Fourth Hokage and a ninja from the former Whirlpool village. He was son of the greatest ninja that had ever been born in the Hidden Leaf Village that mastered jutsus like the Body Flicker Technique and left his legacy as another jutsu. The Rasengan and its swirling motion made a person think what exactly was on his mind when he created the jutsu itself. Later in life, Naruto would be trained by his father's own sensei, the Sanin Jiraiya, who would show him how to complete the Yondaime's jutsu.

It was all a matter of time, patience, and just a little of that Uzumaki dedication that everyone knew about.

* * *

At first, I never really took notice of _him _at the Academy. 

I remember seeing him once or twice, hearing his name being tossed around by a few girls and boys, but that was it.

He was sitting up against a tree one day when classes were over with a thick book on his lap. His face was neutral, yet his eyes twinkled, as he quickly turned the pages. It amazed me how fast he could read at his age.

I didn't notice I was staring at him until he glanced at me as if he had known I was looking at him for a while. He had a baby smirk on his face that was just adorable. I flushed up to my hairline at being caught and flushed a deeper red when he didn't look away from me. He had black hair that seemed tinted blue with dark piercing eyes. His skin was pale and seemed so soft to touch that I blushed even more at the realization. _"Uh...H-hi!",_I stuttered out. His lips twitched at my nervous energy but before he could reply I heard someone call my name.

_"Sakura! Sakura Haruno! What are you doing to our Sasuke!"_

I still remember the look on his face when I said, _"Sasuke? What's a Sasuke?". _

He snorted softly and smirked, _"I'm Sasuke"_.

Oh...wait...what?

He was Sasuke?!

The "dreamy" one every girl is always talking about? The prodigy Iruka-sensei just loves?! It really was a small world.

But he was nicer than I thought and we talked to each other that day. We continued with our friendship for months after that.

It was he who came up with the idea to sneak into other villager's gardens and "steal" their luscious tomatoes. I didn't see what the big deal was, tomatoes didn't appeal to me as they did to him. But he told me that after we finished with the tomatoes we could pick cherry blossoms. After he had found out that my name meant cherry blossom, he always wanted to throw them in my face.

He knew how much I liked them but as he said,_"...the man always gets what he wants first"._ I let him have that moment of ego boosting, it made me happy to see him so excited about something like...tomatoes. Sasuke would used his kunai to impale the tomatoes right off its vine and grab it with the stealth of a real ninja.

For some strange reason, I almost always got caught. I looked very suspicious standing there with a ripe tomato in my hand and legs ready to run for it. Sasuke would distract them by either kicking their trashcan over or yelling out that something was on fire in their house. He would appear next to me a moment later and help me make my escape.

After we had enough tomatoes, we would think about where the best cherry blossoms were. The huge tree near the Konoha gates was beautiful when it bloomed every spring. But since cherry blossoms didn't live very long it was hard to pick one that was full and beautiful. Sometimes, if we were standing under the tree, and the wind blew hard enough, it would scatter the cherry blossom petals every where.

Sasuke always ran out because _"flowers were girly"_ but petals would always get stuck in that hair of his. I stayed under the tree until the last petal fell and by then my hair would be covered with different shades of pink flowers. I would giggle at him as he tried to get all the petals out of his blue tinted hair.

One day there was no wind so the blossoms didn't float down to us. I stayed there looking up at them for hours, hoping that at least one would fall down. The burning sensation in my leg was going away from being caught in one of the tomato vines the day before. I was so entranced with the flower above me I didn't realize that Sasuke had climbed up the cherry blossom tree. He called my name and I almost fell to the ground at seeing his face between the branches. He picked the fullest one he could see and yanked it from its perch before climbing down. He handed me the small flower and at that moment a huge burst of wind scattered all the petals from above. I laughed at us because we were too impatient and he just frowned because now he was covered in petals and holding a flower. _"Here",_ he muttered shoving the small flower into my hands before running out from under the tree. I felt so lucky at having him as my friend because he was willing to hurt himself for my happiness. I ran out to meet him and collided into him with a hug. He froze for a moment before shaking me off, a small blush on his cheeks. _"Ewww stop it, I'm gonna get girl germs!"_ That was one of the best days of my life.

At the Academy, we kept our friendship a secret. I would hang out with Ino Yamanaka who was a fellow kuniochi. Whenever someone teased my about my forehead she would stand up for me and yell at them like a crazy girl. She even gave me a red ribbon to wear in my hair that flattered my face more. I had never had a close friend who was a girl before and it felt good.

Sasuke would just sit in the corner and stare out the window, he never spoke to anyone. After classes would over, we would meet up by the swing Naruto used to sit on and talk about anything that came to mind. We were about six maybe seven back then and to us life was good.

But then _**it **_happened.

We went home as usual that day and waved to me as he made his way to the Uchiha compound.

I have only heard rumors about what he had seen and they were so horrible.

He came back the next day and walked by me without saying a word. He had dark circles under his eyelids and his eyes were red rimmed from crying. By the time classes were over that day, everyone knew that Sasuke's older brother had murdered his entire family. All the people around him gave their condolences but he never looked away from his book. He glared at anyone who dared to approach him and took pity on what had happened to him.

I wanted to reach out and hug Sasuke but I knew how much he despised someone touching him. He wouldn't even look my way and looking back I now know that Itachi hadn't just killed everyone but his younger brother. He had killed Sasuke in a way too because he was never the same after that. He didn't talk to me, he didn't even look at me anymore and I knew that my Sasuke, the one that always hung out with me and picked cherry blossoms only because I liked to, was gone. Itachi had stabbed him through the heart and took away the people most important to him.

I knew how much Sasuke wanted to prove to his father he was worthy of the name Uchiha and he would never get the chance.

During the time he never spoke to me, I began to realize something. I missed his small smiles, the way he smirked at me whenever petals got caught in my hair but, most importantly, I missed him. The old Sasuke, the one who was mine and only mine.

I wanted to become more than just his friend, I wanted to be his girlfriend. I dreamed about one day wearing the Uchiha emblem on my back. But in the process I became something he warned me never to be, a brainless fan girl. One who flaunted all her "love" right out in the open where it was vulnerable to piercing arrows and deadly blows. I used to be his equal, I became the stuff he disgusted the most.

I tried to speak to him and told him how great and strong he was. My mom had said that boys liked to be complemented. Why did I ever listen to her? He snapped at me one day and yelled_," Shut up! Just shut up! I don't want you, I don't need you, just leave me alone!". _He didn't know how much I went home and cried after that, in all my years of knowing him he had never snapped at me like that. But what really scared me was that right before he yelled at me his eyes glowed red. He looked like some kind of monster that wanted to eat me.

Where was the boy who smiled at me whenever I said something that sounded weird? Where was the boy that shared his tomatoes with me even though I thought they tasted like watery ketchup? In the process of wanting Sasuke so much, I had lost a friend who helped me through my toughest times.

I thought that I could have either Sasuke or Ino, I was so foolish. Why couldn't I realize that I could have both? Ino wanted Sasuke just as much as I did but she didn't know him like I did, she didn't know him beyond his looks and how he acted in the Academy.

Sasuke and I stopped talking for a while and to me he didn't exist anymore. His presence was always there but I never acknowledged him, not like I used to anyway. But during our last year of the Academy, I started using a smile to hide everything. A laugh to hide a sob, a huge girlish _SASUKE_ squeak to hide the sound of loneliness.

Nothing could ever compare to the friendship we used to have, no one understood the significance of blossoms and a vegetable-fruit thing. Imagine the squeak I gave once I found out I was on his team. I knew it wouldn't be like old times because we were older and he still didn't want anything to do with me. I didn't really mind Naruto much, except for the fact that he always had a brotherly rival with Sasuke. If Sasuke didn't need anybody then he should be left alone.

Despite everything they were the perfect team, without me of course. I wasn't a very good ninja physically, I wasn't strong or fast like they both were. Whenever they did a formation that only included them I felt so alone. _I graduated from the Ninja Academy! I'm a ninja too! Hello!!! I can help !!! _But I just mostly got in the way.

I had the best chakra control but Naruto had the most chakra and Sasuke's chakra was powerful...so I was nothing compared to them. During our mission into the Land of Waves when he had collapsed from Haku's senbons, I felt like my heart died. I couldn't bear to see him lying there, in a pool of his own blood, and I broke down. But he was alive and I was so relieved but the thought of losing him never left my mind. Now I know that when you love someone, there's always the threat losing them. You just have believe that it will never come to that. Love isn't for the faint of heart, the weak of mind, or the weak of faith. It's for the daring, the selfless and the patient.

But then that day, during my first Chunin Exam, when Naruto was knocked out and Sasuke's mind was tangled with the pain from the Cursed Seal of Heaven, it was all up to me. I'll admit I was terrible and sloppy with the techniques I used but after a while I started to give up. The Sound nin kept punching me in the face and after cutting my hair to save myself from Kin, I felt so drained.

I couldn't hold up anymore, everything was falling apart. And then he awoke like the angel of death he resembled so much. The seal had spread to cover the left side of his body and his form trembled with dark chakra. He looked to me and had demanded to know who had messed me up so bad. Though I would grow to hate the seal because it took him from me, at that moment the seal helped me see something.

Standing in front of me, with a halo of dark powerful energy, was the Sasuke I remembered. He sounded so caring yet there was a hidden threat in his voice. He could rearrange someone's body with his new powers and he knew it. He was about to yank the Sound nins arms right from their sockets, I yelled at him to stop and hugged his back.

In those few moments where I was pressed to him, I could feel his chakra invading mine. It invaded my system like a virus and burned under my skin. It was probably what he was feeling too because he convulsed internally once before letting go. From then on, I tried to cheer him on silently by fighting by his side. I would sometimes get butterflies whenever he asked me something like how far away the enemy was or if I would back him up when he attacked head on. It made me feel like he actually needed me. I liked him all over again after seeing how graceful and powerful he could be.

As our team grew stronger, I began to see how different we were. He rarely spoke about revenge but when he did he made sure everyone knew what his dream was. All he ever wanted to do was to kill his brother and restore his clan to its past greatness. He never wanted to become a Sanin or Hokage, he didn't even want to be a Special Jounin or a member of the ANBU Black Oops. He just wanted to kill the man that had taken everything from him.

In our hearts, the two other members of Team 7 and our sensei knew that someday he would leave us to pursue his dream. I used to wish he would some day take me with him and we would defeat Itachi _together_. But he wouldn't like that. He probably had offered Itachi's blood to his deceased parents already and vowed that he would send his brother to hell. It wouldn't surprise me if they both died at the same time, only then would they both be truly satisfied.

When he left to join Orochimaru I experienced what a broken heart was for the first time. I tried to remember what my mom told me about it all being just an expression but it wouldn't work. I would remember how he looked the last time I saw him with that indifferent expression, without his scarred headband, and his backpack. His words, his thank you, haunted my dreams so much that week. I felt a searing pain in my chest and for a long time I had fits where I couldn't even breathe. My eyes would water and a burning sensation, like the time his chakra crashed into mine in the Forest of Death, would take over me. It sometimes knocked me off of my feet because I couldn't handle it.

I couldn't handle the thought of being without him, I needed him like a star needs the sky to survive. Without the night sky, without space, stars would not exist and that was how I felt. I was nothing without him, nothing without his dark eyes and dangerous intentions.

My mom would wake me up in the middle of the night to calm me down because she could hear me calling out for him in my sleep. I thought he needed to be rescued, I thought Orochimaru hypnotized him, but I was so wrong. He went willingly to Sound. Orochimaru dangled immense power in his face and he reacted just like any other power hungry person would. He betrayed his entire village, left behind his friends, only to chase down the person he once looked up to so much.

He was suppose to turn out like Kakashi-sensei did. The ninja who would defy all the odds and become great just like his teacher. Kakashi-sensei even took him under his wing by teaching him the Chidori and he would have learned so much more if he stayed. But Sasuke thought that if Naruto was more powerful than he was, then he was worthless. He didn't realize that he couldn't compare himself to Naruto because they were both too different. He was light skinned, Naruto was tanned. He had dark eyes and hair where Naruto had blue eyes and blonde hair. For a long time, at least longer than Naruto, Sasuke had a huge family that cared for him so much. Naruto was an orphan that had to work hard to get everyone to pay attention to him. He was never labeled "the prodigy" or "the genius", enemies and friends alike knew him as the guy who never gave up. Sasuke thought that the only way he would ever beat Naruto was to follow Orochimaru's bait and leave Konoha.

He thought it was the only one to defeat his brother.

When I was fifteen and on Team Kakashi with Naruto, Sai, and Captain Yamato (new additions to our team while Kakashi was in the hospital) we saw him at the old Sound base. His new ninja outfit made him look dangerously untouchable and I could tell he was a few minutes short of killing us all.

It was official..._he _was gone. His eyes were darker than they used to be and I bet that if he had the Sharingan turned on, they would have glowed like two red suns. He looked down to us and somehow I felt like he had always looked down on us. He thought we were nothing compared to him, spineless worms that he could squish with just one step. The things that once bonded us like the closest of Shinobi tore us apart hard and fast, we no longer had the same fate. It was history repeating itself like it always does. But what is history except for a clock that goes around in circles, repeating the same things every few rounds. Orochimaru left Tsunade and Jiraiya in search for power, Sasuke left Naruto and me in search for power.

But in spite of that I wanted to show Sasuke how much stronger I was now, how powerful I had really become. I was as strong as Tsunade but by just looking at me I bet he couldn't tell.

_Don't you remember me Sasuke? Stop looking at me like that...I'm your friend. _I wanted to punch the wall he was standing on and send him crumbling to the ground because I wouldn't accept the fact that my Sasuke was gone again. His chakra pattern was tainted with use of the Cursed Seal of Heaven, he even looked like he belonged in Sound. He didn't wear their headband for some reason but that didn't matter, he was one of them. Orochimaru's right hand ninja, his prodigy in every sense of the word.

I was glad Kakashi-sensei wasn't there to see him. Though he rarely showed emotion I knew that he always wanted the best for Sasuke. Seeing him standing there with Orochimaru and looking down at his old teammates with their Leaf forehead protectors on was depressing.

He was so close yet so far away. Like the star that no matter how high a mountain or how many mountains you climb for him, he never gets any closer.

I promised him that he would be happy if he stayed with me, that we would always have fun together. I had a habit of making promises I couldn't keep. Sasuke would never be happy unless he got what he wanted. I should have realized that from the start, I should of just said goodbye and wish him luck instead of being knocked out with his name on my lips. My goodbye to Sasuke can't even be considered a goodbye. It was probably just an _I'll see you soon _or something like that.

At least...I hope it was...I want to see him again.

* * *

And now here I am, in the same place he left me, many years after his departure. I'm pushing twenty years old now and I'm still thinking about my childhood love but I can't help it. It was the saddest and happiest I've ever been in my life, I'm just indifferent now. Nothing, no one, could make me feel those confusing emotions like he did. 

A few days ago, the Hokage got a tip that Sasuke was in the area and might be coming home soon. I'm not waiting for him now because I've always been waiting for him. Today or tomorrow will not be any different.

I used to tell him, _"Konoha ninja are just like one big family, Sasuke, and family help each other no matter what might happen. Iruka-sensei said that someday our paths will take us in different directions but no matter where we go, we will still be part of the Leaf ninja family. The bond between two Shinobi runs deeper than even blood, isn't that amazing?". _But with boys like Sasuke, with their amazing skills and hidden desires, something always goes wrong. I wanted to be the one to save him from the darkness that threatened to consume him and did. I used to think that I wasn't good enough for him but I don't now. I know he's out there somewhere, it's weird to say I can feel him next to me.

His chakra pattern, it's somewhere near me. I've been thinking that a lot lately and when I go to search for him, I end up empty handed. _It's just my mind playing tricks on me again, especially on nights like this._ When the nights are still and the moon is half hidden beneath clouds I see him.

He stands right under the gate that leads out of Konoha, six years old again, with small pink flowers in his hair and on his clothes. Sometimes he even holds out a cherry blossom to me with an accomplished look on his face. He seems so real with his innocent charcoal eyes that I want to reach over and touch him to see if he's really there.

He never is...but I still have his memory. It surrounds me like a fog, thick as a blanket and comfortable. When trapped in a thick fog, a person can't see anything but cloudlike vapors. That's what his memory is to me, a fog. He is all I think about and all I see sometimes.

I feel him near whenever the fog rolls in but then again...I always feel him near.

His spirit has never left this bench, this was the last place my Sasuke was before his soul died.

It was the last place I was before my heart died.

It's the first place he's gonna walk through when he comes back home.

_When he comes back to me. _


End file.
